3. Cultural-Personal Factors in Science

THE JOY OF SCIENCE. For most scientists, a powerful psychological
motivation is curiosity about "how things work" and a taste for intellectual
stimulation. The joy of scientific discovery is captured in the following
excerpts from letters between two scientists involved in the development of
quantum mechanics: Max Planck (who opened the quantum era in 1900) and Erwin
Schrodinger (who formulated a successful quantum theory in 1926).

[Planck, in a letter to Schrodinger, says] "I am reading your paper
in the way a curious child eagerly listens to the solution of a riddle with
which he has struggled for a long time, and I rejoice over the beauties that
my eye discovers." [Schrodinger replies by agreeing that] "everything
resolves itself with unbelievable simplicity and unbelievable beauty, everything
turns out exactly as one would wish, in a perfectly straightforward manner,
all by itself and without forcing." {more about The
Joy of Science}

OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVES and PRACTICAL CONCERNS. Most
scientists try to achieve personal satisfaction and professional success by
forming intellectual alliances with colleagues and by seeking respect and rewards,
status and power in the form of publications, grant money, employment, promotions,
and honors. When a theory (or a request for research
funding) is evaluated, most scientists will be influenced by the common-sense
question, "How will the result of this evaluation affect my own personal
and professional life?" Maybe a scientist has publicly taken sides
on an issue and there is ego involvement with a competitive desire to "win
the debate"; or time and money has been invested in a theory or research
project, and there will be higher payoffs, both practical and psychological,
if there is a favorable evaluation by the scientific community. In
these situations, when there is a substantial investment of personal resources,
many scientists will try to use logic and "authority" to influence
the process and result of evaluation.

METAPHYSICAL WORLDVIEWS. Metaphysics forms a foundation
for some conceptual factors, such as criteria for the types of entities and
interactions that should be used in theories. One example, described
earlier, was the preference by many astronomers, including Copernicus, for
using only circular motions at constant speed in their theories. Metaphysics can also influence logical
structure. Darden (1991) suggests that a metaphysical worldview in
which nature is simple and unified may lead to a preference for scientific
theories that are simple and unified. A common metaphysical assumption in science
is empirical consistency, with reproducible results — there is an expectation
that identical experimental systems should always produce the same observations. (with "the
same" interpreted statistically, not literally) Metaphysical worldviews can be nonreligious,
or based on religious principles that are theistic, nontheistic, or atheistic. Everyone
has a worldview, which does not cease to exist if it is ignored or denied. For
example, to the extent that positivists (also called
empiricists) who try to prohibit unobservables in theories are motivated
by a futile effort to produce a science without metaphysics, they are motivated
by their own metaphysical worldviews.

IDEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES are based on subjective values and on political
goals for "the way things should be" in society. These principles
span a wide range of concerns, including socioeconomic structures, race relations,
gender issues, social philosophies and customs, religions, morality, equality,
freedom, and justice. A dramatic example of political influence
is the control of Russian biology, from the 1930s into the 1960s, by the "ideologically
correct" theories and research programs of Lysenko, supported by the
power of the Soviet government.

OPINIONS OF "AUTHORITIES" can also influence evaluation. The
quotation marks are a reminder that a perception of authority is in the eye
of the beholder. Perceived authority can be due to an acknowledgment
of expertise, a response to a dominant personality, and/or involvement in a
power relationship. Authority that is based at least partly on power
occurs in scientists' relationships with employers, tenure committees, cliques
of colleagues, professional organizations, journal editors and referees, publishers,
grant reviewers, and politicians who vote on funding for science.

SOCIAL-INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS. These five factors (psychology,
practicality, metaphysics, ideology, authority) interact with each other, and
they develop and operate in a complex social context at many levels — in
the lives of individuals, in the scientific community, and in society as a
whole. In an attempt to describe this complexity, the analysis-and-synthesis
framework of ISM includes: the characteristics of individuals and
their interactions with each other and with a variety of groups (familial,
recreational, professional, political,...); profession-related
politics (occurring primarily within the scientific community) and societal
politics (involving broader issues in society); and the institutional
structures of science and society. The term "cultural-personal" implies
that both cultural and personal levels are important. These levels
are intimately connected by mutual interactions because individuals (with
their motivations, concerns, worldviews, and principles) work and think in
the context of a culture, and this culture (including its institutional structure,
operations, and politics, and its shared concepts and habits of thinking)
is constructed by and composed of individual persons. Cultural-personal factors are influenced
by the social and institutional context that constitutes the reward system
of a scientific community. In fact, in many ways this context can be
considered a causal mechanism that is partially responsible for producing
the factors. For example, a desire for respect is intrinsic in humans,
existing independently of a particular social structure, but the situations
that stimulate this desire (and the responses that are motivated by these
situations) do depend on the social structure. An important aspect
of a social-institutional structure is its effects on the ways in which authority
is created and manifested, especially when power relationships are involved.000000

What are the results of mutual interactions between science and society? How
does science affect culture, and how does culture affect science?

SCIENCE AFFECTS CULTURE. The most obvious effect of science
has been its medical and technological applications, with the accompanying
effects on health care, lifestyles, and social structures. But science
also influences culture, in many modern societies, by playing a major role
in shaping cultural worldviews, concepts, and thinking patterns. Sometimes
this occurs by the gradual, unorchestrated diffusion of ideas from science
into the culture. At other times, however, there is a conscious effort,
by scientists or nonscientists, to use "the authority of science" for
rhetorical purposes, to claim that scientific theories and evidence support
a particular belief system or political program.

CULTURE AFFECTS SCIENCE. ISM, which is mainly concerned
with the operation of science, asks "How does culture affect science?" Some
influence occurs as a result of manipulating the "science affects culture" influence
described above. If society wants to obtain certain types of science-based
medical or technological applications, this will influence the types of scientific
research that society supports with its resources. And if scientists
(or their financial supporters) have already accepted some cultural concepts,
such as metaphysical and/or ideological theories, they will tend to prefer
(and support) scientific theories that agree with these cultural-personal theories. In
the ISM diagram this influence appears as a conceptual factor, external
relationships... with cultural-personal theories. For example,
the Soviet government supported the science of Lysenko because his theories
and research supported the principles of Marxism. They also hoped that
this science would increase their own political power, so their support of
Lysenko contained a strong element of self-interest.

PERSONAL CONSISTENCY. Some cultural-personal
influence occurs due to a desire for personal consistency in life. According
to the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger,
1956), if there is a conflict between ideas, between actions, or between thoughts
and actions, this inconsistency produces an unpleasant dissonance, and a person
will be motivated to take action aimed at reducing the dissonance. In
the overall context of a scientist's life, which includes science and much
more, a scientist will seek consistency between the science and non-science
aspects of life. { Larry Laudan has proposed a model for dissonance-driven "reticulated" change in
science. } Because groups are formed by people, the
principles of personal consistency can be extrapolated (with appropriate
modifications, and with caution) beyond individuals to other levels of social
structure, to groups that are small or large, including societies and governments. For
example, during the period when the research program of Lysenko dominated
Russian biology, the Soviets wanted consistency between their ideological
beliefs and scientific beliefs. A consistency between ideology and
science will reduce psychological dissonance, and it is also logically preferable. If
a Marxist theory and a scientific theory are both true, these theories should
agree with each other. If the theories of Marx are believed to be true,
there tends to be a decrease in logical status for all theories that are
inconsistent with Marx, and an increase in status for theories consistent
with Marx. This logical principle, applied to psychology, forms the
foundation for theories of cognitive dissonance, which therefore also predict
an increase in the status of Lysenko's science in the context of Soviet politics. Usually scientists (and others) want theories
to be not just plausible, but also useful. With Lysenko's biology,
the Soviets hoped that attaining consistency between science policy and the
principles of communism would produce increased problem-solving utility. Part
of this hope was that Lysenko's theories, applied to agricultural policy,
would increase the Russian food supply; but nature did not cooperate with
the false theories, so this policy resulted in decreased productivity. Another
assumption was that the Soviet political policies would gain popular support
if there was a belief that this policy was based on (and was consistent with)
reliable scientific principles. And if science "plays a major
role in shaping cultural...thinking patterns," the government wanted
to insure that a shaping-of-ideas by science would support their ideological
principles and political policies. The government officials also wanted
to maintain and increase their own power, so self-interest was another motivating
factor.

FEEDBACK. In the ISM diagram, three large arrows point
toward "evaluation of theory" from the three evaluation factors,
and three small arrows point back the other way. These small arrows show
the feedback that occurs when a conclusion about
theory status already has been reached based on some factors and, to minimize
cognitive dissonance, there is a tendency to interpret other factors in a way
that will support this conclusion. Therefore, each evaluation criterion
is affected by feedback from the current status of the theory and from the
other two criteria.

THOUGHT STYLES. In the case of Lysenko there was an obvious,
consciously planned interference with the operation of science. But cultural
influence is usually not so obvious. A more subtle influence is exerted
by the assumed ideas and values of a culture (especially the culture of a scientific
community) because these assumptions, along with explicitly formulated ideas
and values, form a foundation for the way scientists think when they generate
and evaluate theories, and plan their research programs. The influence
of these foundational ideas and values, on the process and content of science,
is summarized at the top of the ISM diagram: "Scientific activities...are
affected by culturally influenced thought styles." Section
8 discusses thought styles: their characteristics; their effects on the
process and content of science; and their variations across different fields,
and changes with time.

OVER-GENERALIZING. When scholars are thinking about cultural-personal factors and their influence in science, too often there is too much over-generalizing. It's easy to get carried away into silly ideas, unless we remember that all of these cultural-personal factors vary in different areas of science and in communities within each area, and for different individuals, so the types and amounts of resulting influences (on the process of science and the content of science) vary widely.

CONTROVERSY. Among scholars who study
science there is a wide range of views about the extent to which cultural factors
influence the process and content of science. These disagreements, and
the role of cultural factors in ISM and in science education, are discussed
in another page, Hot Debates about Science. Briefly
summarized, my opinion is that an extreme emphasis on cultural influence is
neither accurate nor educationally beneficial, and that even though there is
a significant cultural influence on the process of science, usually (but not always) the content
of science is not strongly affected by cultural factors.

2B. Constraints on Components of Scientific Theories

PREFERENCES and MOTIVATIONS. Scientific communities develop
preferences for the types of components that should (and should not) be used
in a theory. For example, prior to 1609 when Kepler introduced elliptical
planetary orbits, it was widely believed that in astronomical theories all
motions should be in circles with constant speed. This belief played
a role in motivating Copernicus:

Copernicus attacks the Ptolemaic astronomy not because in it the sun moves
rather than the earth, but because Ptolemy has not strictly adhered to the
precept that all celestial motions must be explained only by uniform circular
motions or combinations of such circular motions. ... It has been generally
believed that Copernicus's insistence on uniform circular motion is part
of a philosophical or metaphysical dogma going back to Plato. (Cohen,
1985; pp 112-113)

In every field there are implicit and explicit
constraints on theory components — on the types of entities, actions
and interactions to include in a theory's models for composition and operation. These
constraints can be motivated by beliefs about ontology (after
asking "Does it exist?") or utility (by
asking "Will it be useful for doing science?"). For example,
an insistence on uniform circular motion could be based on the ontological
belief that celestial bodies never move in noncircular motion, or on the utilitarian
rationale that using noncircular motions makes it more difficult to do calculations.

CONSTRAINTS ON UNOBSERVABLE COMPONENTS. A positivist believes
that scientific theories should not postulate the existence of unobservable
entities, actions, or interactions. For example, behaviorist psychology
avoids the concept of "thinking" because it cannot be directly observed. A
strict positivist will applaud Newton's theory of gravitation, despite its
lack of a causal explanatory mechanism, because it is an empirical generalization
that is reliable and approximately accurate, and it does not postulate (as
do more recent theories of gravity) unobservable entities such as fields, curved
space, or gravitons. But most scientists, although they appreciate Newton's
descriptive theory for what it is, consider the absence of explanation to be
a weakness. some comments about terminology: Positivism
was proposed in the 1830s by Auguste Comte, who was motivated partly by anti-religious
ideology. In the early 20th century a philosophy of logical
positivism was developed to combine positivism with other ideas. In
current use, "positivism" can be used in a narrow sense (as Comte
did, and as I do here) or it can refer to anything connected with logical
positivism, including the "other ideas" and more. Logical
positivism can also be called logical empiricism. { Notice that empiricism (i.e.,
positivism) is not the same as empirical. A
theory that is non-empiricist (because
it some components, such as atoms or molecules, that are unobservable) can
make predictions about empirical data that
can be used in empirical evaluation.
} Although positivism (or empiricism, the
name typically given to current versions) is considered a legitimate perspective
in philosophy, it is rare among scientists, who welcome a wide variety of
ways to describe and explain. Many modern theories include unobservable
entities and actions, such as electrons and electromagnetic force, among
their essential components. Although most scientists welcome a descriptive
theory that only describes empirical patterns, at this point they think "we're
not there yet" because their limited theory is seen as just a temporary
stage along the path to a more complete theory. This attitude contrasts
with the positivist view that a descriptive theory should be the ending point
for science. The ISM framework includes two types of
theories (and corresponding models) — descriptive and explanatory — so
it is compatible with any type of scientific theory, whether it is descriptive,
explanatory, or has some characteristics of each. My own anti-positivist
opinions, which are not part of the ISM framework, are summarized in the
preceding paragraph, and are discussed in more depth in another page. {in
Hot Debates about Science}

8. Thought Styles in Science

This section describes what thought styles
are, and how they affect the process and content of science.

A DEFINITION. As described by Grinnell (1992), a cell biologist
with an insider's view of science, a scientist's thought
style (or the collective thought style for
a group of scientists) is a system of concepts, developed from prior experience,
about nature and research science. It provides the "operating paradigm" that
guides decisions about what to study, and how to plan and do the research-actions
of observing and interpreting. These concepts (about nature and science)
are related to the social and institutional structures within which they
develop and operate. But even though many ideas are shared in a scientific
community, some aspects of a thought style vary from one individual to another,
and from one group to another. There are interactions between groups,
and each individual belongs to many groups. { The following treatment
will not explicitly address this complexity, and will usually refer to "a
thought style" or "the thought style" as if only one style
existed. }

EFFECTS ON OBSERVATION AND INTERPRETATION. Thought styles
affect the process and content of science. The influence of a thought style may be
difficult to perceive because the ideas in it are often unconsciously assumed
as "the way things are done" rather than being explicitly stated. But
these ideas exist nevertheless, and they affect the process and content of
science, producing effects that span a wide range from the artistic taste
that defines a theory's "elegance" to the hard-nosed pragmatism
of deciding whether a project to develop a theory or explore a domain is
worth the resources it would require. A thought style will influence (and when
viewed from another perspective, is comprised by) the problem-posing and
problem-solving strategies of individuals and groups. There may be
a preference for projects with comprehensive "know every step in advance" preliminary
planning, or casual "steer as you go" improvisational serendipity. One procedural decision is to ask "Who
will do what during research?" Although it is possible for one
scientist to do all the activities in ISM, this is not necessary because
within a research group the efforts of individual scientists, each working
on a different part of the problem, can be cooperatively coordinated. Similarly,
in a field as a whole, each group can work on a different part of a mega-problem. With
a "division of labor," individuals or groups can specialize in
certain types of activities. One division is between experimentalists who
generate observations, and theorists who focus
on interpretation. But most scientists do some of both, with the balance
depending on the requirements of a particular research project and on the
abilities and preferences of colleagues. There will be mutual influences between
thought styles and the procedural "rules of the game" developed
by a community of scientists to establish and maintain certain types of institutions
and reward systems, and procedures for deciding which people, topics, and
viewpoints are presented in conferences and are published in journals. A
thought style will affect attitudes toward competition and cooperation and
how to combine them effectively, and (at a community level) the ways in which
activities of different scientists and groups are coordinated. The
logical and aesthetic tastes of a community will affect the characteristics
of written and oral presentations, such as the blending of modes (verbal,
visual, mathematical,...), the degree of simplification, and the balance
between abstractions and concrete illustrations or analogies.

A thought style will tend to favor the
production of certain types of observation-and-interpretation knowledge rather
than other types. Effects on observation could include, for example,
a preference for either controlled experiments or field studies, and data collection
that is qualitative or quantitative. There will also be expectations
for the connections between experimenting and theorizing. An intellectual environment will favor
the invention, pursuit and acceptance of certain types of theories. Some
of this influence arises from the design of experiments, which determines
what is studied and how, and thus the types of data collected. Another
mechanism for influence is the generation and selection of criteria for theory
evaluation. For example, thought styles can exert a strong influence
on conceptual factors, such as preferences for the types of components used
in theories, the optimal balance between simplicity and completeness, the
value of unified wide-scope theories, the relative importance of plausibility
and utility, and the ways in which a theory or project can be useful in promoting
cognition and research. Thought styles will influence, and will be
influenced by, the goals of science, such as whether the main goal of research
projects should be to improve the state of observations or interpretations,
whether science should focus on understanding nature or controlling nature,
and what should be the relationships between science, technology, and society.

The influence exerted by thought styles
and cultural-personal factors is a hotly debated topic, as discussed in Hot
Debates
about Science.

CONCEPTUAL ECOLOGY. The metaphor of conceptual
ecology (Toulmin, 1972) offers an interesting perspective on the effects
of thought styles, based on analogy between biological and conceptual environments. In
much the same way that the environmental characteristics of an ecological
niche affect the natural selection occurring within its bounds, the intellectual
characteristics of individuals — and of the dominant thought styles
in the communities they establish and within which they operate — will
favor the development and maintenance of certain types of ideas (about theories,
experiments, goals, procedures,...) rather than others.

a PUZZLE and a FILTER. Bauer compares science to solving
a puzzle. In this metaphor (from Polanyi, 1962) scientists are assembling
a jigsaw puzzle of knowledge about nature, with
the semi-finished puzzle in the open for all to see. When one scientist
fits a piece into the puzzle, or modifies a piece already in place, others
respond to this change by thinking about the next step that now becomes possible. The
overall result of these mutual adjustments is that the independent activities
of many scientists are coordinated so they blend together and form a structured
cooperative whole. Bauer supplements this portrait of science
with the metaphor of a filter, to describe the
process in which semi-reliable work done by scientists on the frontiers of
research, which Bauer describes in a way reminiscent of the "anything
goes" anti-method anarchy of Feyerabend (1975), is refined into the
generally reliable body of knowledge that appears in textbooks. In
science, filtering occurs in a perpetual process of self-correction, as individual
inadequacies and errors are filtered through the sieve of public accountability
by collaborators and colleagues, journal editors and referees, and by the
community of scientists who read journal articles, listen to conference presentations,
and evaluate what they read and hear. During this process it is probable,
but not guaranteed, that much of the effect of biased self-interest by one
individual or group will be offset by the actions of other groups. Due
to this filtering, "textbook knowledge" in the classroom is generally
more reliable than "research knowledge" at the frontiers, and the
objectivity of science as a whole is greater than the objectivity of its
individual participants. { But a byproduct of filtering, not directly
acknowledged by Bauer, is that the collective evaluations and dominant thought
styles of a scientific community introduce a "community bias" into
the process and content of science. }

THE 4Ps AND THOUGHT STYLES. The puzzle and filter metaphors
provide useful ways to visualize posing and persuading, respectively. While
scientists watch what others are doing with the puzzle of knowledge, they search
for gaps to fill, for opportunities to pose a problem where an investment of
their own resources is likely to be productive. And the process of filtering
is useful for describing the overall process of scientific persuasion, including
its institutional procedures.PREPARATION. There
are mutual influences between thought styles and three ways to learn. First,
the formal education of students who will become future scientists is affected
by the thought styles of current scientists and educators; in this way, current
science education helps to shape thought styles in the future. Second,
thought styles influence what scientists learn from their own past and current
research experience, to use in future research. Third, thought styles
influence the types of ideas that survive the "filtering" process
and are published in journals and textbooks.POSING. The thought
style of a scientific community will affect every aspect of posing a problem:
selecting an area to study, forming perceptions about the current state of
knowledge in this area, and defining a desired goal-state for knowledge in
the future. Problem posing is important within science, and it plays
a key role in the mutual interactions between science and society by influencing
both of the main ways that science affects culture. First, posing affects
the investment of societal resources and the returns (such as medical-technological
applications) that may arise from these investments. Second, the questions
asked by science, and the constraints on how these questions are answered,
will help to shape cultural worldviews, concepts, and thinking patterns.PROBING. As described
above, both types of probing activities — observation and interpretation — are
influenced by thought styles.PERSUASION. For effective
persuasion, arguments should be framed in the structure of current knowledge
(so ideas can be more easily understood and appreciated by readers or listeners),
with an acceptable style of presentation, in a way that will be convincing
when judged by the standards of the evaluators, by carefully considering
all factors — empirical, conceptual, and cultural-personal — that
may influence the evaluation process at the levels of individuals and communities. Doing
all of these things skillfully requires a good working knowledge of the thought
styles in a scientific culture.

VARIATIONS. Thought styles vary from one field of science
to another, and so does their influence on the process and content of science. For
example, the methodology of chemistry emphasizes controlled experiments, while
geology and astronomy (or paleontology,...) depend mainly on observations from
field studies. And experiments in social science and medical science,
which typically use a relatively small number of subjects, must be interpreted
using a sophisticated analysis of sampling and statistics, by contrast with
the statistical simplicity of chemistry experiments that involve a huge number
of molecules. Differences between fields could be caused
by a variety of contributing factors, including: 1) intrinsic
differences in the areas of nature being studied; 2) differences
in the observational techniques available for studying each area; 3) differences,
due to self selection, in the cognitive styles, personalities, values, and
metaphysical-ideological beliefs of scientists who choose to enter different
fields; 4) historical contingencies.

CHANGE. A model that is useful for analyzing change in
science is proposed by Laudan (1984), whose "reticulated model of scientific
rationality" is based on the mutual interactions between the goals, theories,
and methods of scientists. When a change in one of these produces a
dissonant relationship between between any of them, in order to reduce
the perceived dissonance there will be a motivation to make adjustments that
will improve the overall logical harmony. {examples}

Variation and change are a part of science,
and the study of methodological diversity and transformation can be fascinating
and informative. But these characteristics of science should be viewed
in proper perspective. It is important to balance a recognition of differences
with an understanding of similarities, with an appreciation of the extent to
which differences can be explained as "variations on a theme" — as
variations on the basic methods shared by all scientists.

COMMUNITIES IN CONFLICT. One interesting example of variation
was a competition, beginning in 1961, to explain the phenomenon of oxidative
phosphorylation in mitochondria. In 1960 the widely accepted explanation
assumed the existence of a chemical intermediate. Even though
an intermediate had never been found, its eventual discovery was confidently
predicted, and this theory "was...considered an established fact of science.
(Wallace, et al, 1986; p 140)" But in 1961 Peter Mitchell proposed
an alternative theory based on a principle of chemiosmosis. Later,
a third competitor, energy transduction, entered the battle, and for
more than a decade these three theories — and their loyal defenders — were
involved in heated controversy. This episode is a fascinating illustration
of contrasting thought styles, with radically different approaches to solving
the same problem. Advocates of each theory built their own communities,
each with its base of support from colleagues and institutions, and each
with its own assumptions and preferences regarding theories, experimental
techniques, and criteria for empirical and conceptual evaluation. All
aspects of science — including posing with its crucial question of
which projects were most worthy of support — were hotly debated due
to the conflicting perspectives and the corresponding differences in self-interest
and in evaluations about the plausibility and utility of each theory. Eventually, chemiosmotic theory was declared
the winner, and in 1978 Mitchell was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

ENDNOTES

two examples of "reticulated
change" in science: Conceptual criteria are formulated and
adopted by people, and can be changed by people. In 1600, noncircular
motion in theories of astronomy was considered inappropriate, but in 1700
it was acceptable. What caused this change? The theories of Kepler
and Newton. First, Kepler formulated a description of planetary motions
with orbits that were elliptical, not circular. Later, Newton provided
a theoretical explanation for Kepler's elliptical orbits by showing how they
can be derived by combining his own laws of motion and principle of universal
gravitation. For a wide range of reasons, scientists considered these
theories — which postulated noncircular celestial motions — to
be successful, both empirically and conceptually, so the previous prohibition
of noncircular motions was abandoned. In this case the standard portrait
of science was reversed. Instead of using permanently existing criteria
to evaluate proposed theories, already-accepted theories were used to evaluate
and revise the evaluation criteria. Laudan (1977, 1984) describes a similar
situation, with conflict between two beliefs, but this time the resolving
of dissonance resulted in a more significant change, a change in the fundamental
epistemological foundations of science. Some early interpretations
of Newton's methods claimed that he rigidly adhered to building theories
by inductive generalization from observations, and refused to indulge in
hypothetical speculation. Although these claims are disputed by most
modern analyses, they were influential in the early 1700s, and the apparently
Newtonian methods were adopted by scientists who tried to continue Newton's
development of empiricist theories (with core components
derived directly from experience), and philosophers developed empiricist
theories of knowledge. But by the 1750s it was becoming apparent that
many of the most successful theories, in a variety of fields, depended on
the postulation of unobservable entities. There was a conflict between
these theories of science and the explicitly empiricist goals of science. Rather
than give up their non-empiricist theories, the scientists and philosophers "sought
to legitimate the aim of understanding the visible world by means of postulating
an invisible world whose behavior was causally responsible for what we do
observe. ... To make good on their proposed aims, they had to develop
a new methodology of science,... the hypothetico-deductive method. Such
a method allowed for the legitimacy of hypotheses referring to theoretical
entities, just so long as a broad range of correct observational claims could
be derived from such hypotheses. (Laudan, 1984; p. 57)"

a diagram of Integrated Scientific Method

This website for Whole-Person Education has TWO KINDS OF LINKS:
anITALICIZED LINK keeps you inside a page, moving you to
another part of it, and
a NON-ITALICIZED LINK opens another page. Both keep everything inside this window,
so your browser's BACK-button will always take you back to where you were.